Site Builder for Direct Admin

[magixman]

Dear Direct Admin Users,

I wanted to alert you to a new site builder designed specifically for web hosts and that supports Direct Admin. It is called siteZen. If you are considering a site builder you should have a look at this product. It is a complete drag and drop WYSIWG site builder rather than an HTML page editor. It comes with over 85 site templates to get users started.

siteZen comes in two versions. The entry level version is really easy to use and gives novices a satisfying experience getting a professional looking site up and running quickly. The more advanced version has features more on a level with leading offline tools and can be sold as an upgrade when the user needs more capabilities.

siteZen supports Direct Admin specific features such as multiple domains per user and sub-domains.

A server license is currently $150 and allows an unlimited number of users of the entry level site builder. For a limited time this also includes 10 free upgrades to the advanced version of the site builder. There are other licensing options available including per-user licenses.

Please visit http://sitemagix.com for more details.

[jlasman]

I'll start by writing that this is the best looking site buider I've ever seen. And I've looked at a lot.

But I'll add that:

Presuming you used your own technology to write your own site, it doesn't create sites that work properly with Mozilla on linux; on your own site the menu items don't work at all unless you click on them multiple times. On the main page there's some overlapping on Mozilla on linux. I don't know about Mozilla on Windows.

A major problem for me is that the tool requires Windows IE. We, like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, don't believe in MS Windows IE. And even if we did, Bill Gates doesn't believe in us; he doesn't create it for Linux desktops :( .

Looking at your demos and instructions, am I drawing the right conclusion by saying it appears as if the only way the user can get a site s/he can actually use is to pay the upgrade fee? That's what it looks like to me.

It appears to me that I'm paying you either $1 per user or $150 per server just to put your software on my server so users may demo it, but in order to actually create a site I/we/they have to pay for the upgrade?

The reason I believe this to be true is because the demo says only if I buy the upgrade can I change the "Company32
name or slogan" type of wording, and obviously that wording doesn't work on a live site.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

While testing with MS IE 5.5, I got a window that said Microsoft IE encountered an error and had to close. If this happens during alive run is my site saved, or do I have to start over?

Are there any advanced features, such as forms, any included cgis? Or do I have to include them myself?

Thanks.

Jeff

[magixman]

Presuming you used your own technology to write your own site, it doesn't create sites that work properly with Mozilla on linux; on your own site the menu items don't work at all unless you click on them multiple times. On the main page there's some overlapping on Mozilla on linux. I don't know about Mozilla on Windows.

On Firefox/windows you have to hold the mouse over the text of the link (the cursor changes to a hand) rather than just positioning it anywhere on the graphic. Other than that they work fine. We are still trying to find Javascript for the menus that gives the best results with both broswers. I have not tried Mozilla/Linux but I know that older versions of Mozilla had some issues with the menu script.
A major problem for me is that the tool requires Windows IE. We, like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, don't believe in MS Windows IE. And even if we did, Bill Gates doesn't believe in us; he doesn't create it for Linux desktops .

Users that prefer Mozilla for browsing hostile sites can still use IE safely with siteZen. All security flaws in IE have been to do with sites hijacking the browser. This is not an issue in this case. We would love to support Mozilla but it is not possible to have WYSIWYG editing with the state of the DOM as defined by the W3C today.
The number of end users running Linux desktops is a fraction of a percent of the population so really the main group of users left out are those on a Mac. This is unfortunate but still represent a very small part of the market. I realize, however, that a number of hosts use Linux desktops and this can be an issue for supporting end-users.

Looking at your demos and instructions, am I drawing the right conclusion by saying it appears as if the only way the user can get a site s/he can actually use is to pay the upgrade fee? That's what it looks like to me.

No you can publish sites with either Instant Zen or the Full Zen product.

The reason I believe this to be true is because the demo says only if I buy the upgrade can I change the "Company32
name or slogan" type of wording, and obviously that wording doesn't work on a live site.

You are talking about the flyover help prompt which indicates that you cannot change the header. You can actually change the text in the header including the "Company Name". You can also double click on the logo and change that (changing it to none eliminates it).

Instant Zen is fully functional and people have built great looking sites with it. What you cannot do with it is to change the layout itself which puts Instant Zen more or less on par with other site builders while still giving those users who want additional control the possibility of upgrading.

While testing with MS IE 5.5, I got a window that said Microsoft IE encountered an error and had to close. If this happens during alive run is my site saved, or do I have to start over?

Your work is saved contemporaneously so you don't have to start over. Obviously with the demo you have to start over because it deletes your site on exit. We have had reports of browser crashes with some SPs of IE 5.5. IE 6.0 is much more stable with siteZen.

Are there any advanced features, such as forms, any included cgis? Or do I have to include them myself?

You get form mailers if you install a formmail.cgi script on your server. With some control panels this comes standard but not with Direct Admin so you would need to modify a conf file to use the form mailer with siteZen and Direct Admin.

We will be introducing more goodies in the spring in the form "widgets" that wrap php/cgi scripts.

[thoroughfare]

No Firefox support? :(

IE is becoming less popular, and Firefox now has about 10% of the browser market.

Matt

[magixman]

To be fair Firefox currently has about 5% of the market as of December 2004 . Their stated goal is to achieve 10% of the market by the end of 2005 and this may be achieved or even exceeded. There is no question that Firefox is gaining quickly and has a loyal following.

The real point here is that siteZen is more of an application than a web site. Even if you could use Firefox it would look the same and you would not leverage any of the benefits Firefox has on offer. Almost all Windows users have IE and they can use it safely to create sites with siteZen even if they are loyal Firefox fans who use Firefox for their general surfing. Most importantly, once they create a site it can be viewed by people who have Firefox.

For us it was a simple decision: Create a superior product that supports true WYSIWYG editing that can be used by virtually everyone or to create a product without rich text editing so it would be compatible with Firefox. Only time will tell if we made the right choice. Hopefully the W3C will introduce the features needed for us to support Firefox so that this decision will become obsolete.

[rldev]

How else does it support DirectAdmin? Is there a plugin available? How does a DA user log into Site Zen? Is there some type of integration with the control panel?

[magixman]

How else does it support DirectAdmin? Is there a plugin available? How does a DA user log into Site Zen? Is there some type of integration with the control panel?


siteZen is actually a daemon and so does not fit the plugin model. To logon you ask your users to go to <domain>/zen. They login with their normal unix/id password and can create sites for any of their domains (full siteZen) or for a single domain (Instant Zen).

As an administrator you can enable/disable upgrade/downgrade users via our control panel. Our next release will have package synchronization so that you can include Instant Zen or the Full siteZen as a feature of your hosting packages for fully automatic activation.

[rldev]

Sounds Interesting.

Some more questions:

1. While you boast many templates, they mostly look the same to me. Aby plans for different designs?

2. Also functionality is clearly lacking as compared to Soholaunch. Where are the plugins?

I do like your product a lot. Let us know when you have a better ecommerce offering then you currently have and more plugins for customers to use.

While I like your interface much better then soholaunch, you really must add more scripts to compete. Keep up the good work. I will be most likely making a sitebuilding purchase in the next two months. I will certainly revaluate your software. Keep up the good work.

[SteveK42]

I think siteZen is an outstanding product; I helped Sam get it working on DirectAdmin. When he says it supports DirectAdmin, he means that it works with the directory structure, subdomain setup, etc. If you've ever worked with cPanel, you know that the directory structure and certain other aspects are different.

As for the comparison to Soho, I've found Soho to be a PITA software. My users all hated the interface and hated the sites they got out of it; by comparison, every user that has tried Zen has absolutely loved it.

InstantZen is just fine (the $150/server version) for most users; and if a user wants something better, you upsell the product to them. They have to buy the full version. The marketing scheme is actually very good for you and your clients.

The administration of it is easy; you set up a daemon through a great install script, then your users just go to theirdomain.com/zen. You manage through yourdomain.com/zenadmin. It works out very well and has full branding and administrative support.

As for the firefox support, I use firefox as well. Yes, it's a pain to have to use IE to create your site; but remember that the sites that are MADE with Zen are fully visible with Firefox. The point does stand, if you want a good looking builder with a good interface, you still have to use IE because FireFox isn't dynamic enough just yet. I'm sure its day will come!

Gotta say, I actually think Zen is an awesome product, absolutely perfect for a hosting company without the personnel to write a custom site builder, but who wants a better interface for their users.

[rldev]

Just so that I'm clear, I never suggested SiteZen wasn't a good offering or that it was expensive. The problem is that it lacks some important functionality. There are a lot of people today who want more then just basic html pages. They want to easily send newsletters, a decent ecommerce offering(not just the current payl pal offering), Blogs, etc. These are all items already offered in other product offerings.

As for the interface, as I stated previously I like SiteZen much better. Otherwise I wouldn't even be writing this. It is definitely more polished and has great potential. The templates are very professional, even if they all look mostly the same.

As for the marketing aspect, the Pro version at this time really doesn't offer that much more than the Lite version. At least not enough to justify it's price being 10X more then the lite version. If they bundled it with programs it would be a very attractive offering. Is SiteZen going to charge even more money for a Blog or a Guestbook, etc?

I look forward to revaluating the software soon to see what kind of progress they have made. Afterall this is a fairly new product. Good Luck.

[jlasman]

My two cents is that we've looked at the others, and we were about to buy the Tucows product.

We're going to wait another month or two and see what develops.

Jeff

[rldev]

agreed.

[resolveit]

Hi magixman,

Despite your claim that it works on DA I cannot get it installed for evaluation on my development/test server. During the instalation it sticks on the mySQL password for root@localhost. DA does not have this user defined. See this thread (http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=6357&highlight=daadmin) regarding the way DA works.

Unfortunately I am unable to evaluate this tool for usability on my systems. Let me know when you've solved this problem and I will have a look at your tool again, in the meanwhile I'll have to look at other tools :(

Regards,
Onno

[magixman]

Despite your claim that it works on DA I cannot get it installed for evaluation on my development/test server. During the instalation it sticks on the mySQL password for root@localhost. DA does not have this user defined. See this thread regarding the way DA works.

The root@localhost user does still exist and you can find the password that you will need to install siteZen by looking in

/usr/local/directadmin/scripts/setup.txt

the mysql= parameter contains the password

None the less your point is well taken and we will consider looking in /usr/local/directadmin/conf/mysql.conf in future versions for the password so DA folks won't run into this. In the mean time I have put in a knowledge base article for this on our help desk.

If you have any other installation issues please use our help desk and submit a ticket. This will get things resolved quicker.


http://sitemagix.corpdesk.net

[resolveit]

Originally posted by magixman
The root@localhost user does still exist and you can find the password that you will need to install siteZen by looking in

/usr/local/directadmin/scripts/setup.txt

the mysql= parameter contains the password

None the less your point is well taken and we will consider looking in /usr/local/directadmin/conf/mysql.conf in future versions for the password so DA folks won't run into this. In the mean time I have put in a knowledge base article for this on our help desk.

If you have any other installation issues please use our help desk and submit a ticket. This will get things resolved quicker.


http://sitemagix.corpdesk.net


As this is an important issue for DirectAdmin users I will continue to post here.

I just tried the installation again with the mySQL password located in /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/setup.txt as you suggested but I'm afraid it still does not work.

Let me know what else I can try...

Regards,

Onno Vrijburg

[magixman]

I just tried the installation again with the mySQL password located in /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/setup.txt as you suggested but I'm afraid it still does not work.

We do technical support via our ticket system. Please submit a support ticket and we will get to the bottom of this.

http://sitemagix.corpdesk.net

[resolveit]

Hi,

Normally I would but you claim that this sitebuilder works with DirectAdmin. The installation procedure is obviously not written for DA and people with DA will have problems installing your SiteBuilder. I would like to keep this discussion here so that you won't have to have this discussion with every DA user that would like to use your tools. This is benificial to you and the DA community.

Regards,
Onno Vrijburg

[magixman]

Originally posted by resolveit
Hi,

Normally I would but you claim that this sitebuilder works with DirectAdmin. The installation procedure is obviously not written for DA and people with DA will have problems installing your SiteBuilder. I would like to keep this discussion here so that you won't have to have this discussion with every DA user that would like to use your tools. This is benificial to you and the DA community.

Regards,
Onno Vrijburg
This site builder is running a number DA systems. If you would like to get it working on your DA system then you need to let us help you by following our process. When it is all sorted out you can post a summary that will help other users.

[blacknight]

How come you cannot offer a WYSIWYG editor that works in firefox?
Our web developers were able to supply one for our CMS which uses Typo3.
More and more of our users are moving away from IE and none of our technical staff use IE as their primary browser, with a number of them using *nix only desktops. If they cannot see what the end user sees there is no way for them to offer any level of technical support.

[magixman]

Originally posted by blacknight
How come you cannot offer a WYSIWYG editor that works in firefox?
Without going into an in-depth discussion of the capabilities of the Document Object Model it is suffice to say that it was never designed for being able to edit formatted text (HTML) within the browser. Certainly not in the fashion that we require. IE was designed specifically for this. We hope to address this in more detail in an upcoming white paper to provide a more specific answer.

All Windows users have IE and can use it safely with our product to edit sites. Sites produced with siteZen can be displayed on other browsers. As much as we would like to support non-windows platforms we will have to wait until the W3C addresses this. We hope that as applications such as this gain in popularity, the W3C will consider amending future versions of the spec.

[naboose]

I like the software, but we use FreeBSD. I'm currently looking for one that supports freebsd, any suggestions?

[netmotiv8]

This product looks absolutely awesome. I am just about to buy the the server license so can offer instant zen to all our customers :D an hopefully upsell to full zen!

Before I buy could someone tell me how this works with DA and what I need to do to implement it.

The money burning a whole in my wallet right now!

Neil :D

[netmotiv8]

Originally posted by jlasman
My two cents is that we've looked at the others, and we were about to buy the Tucows product.

We're going to wait another month or two and see what develops.

Jeff

We have the the tucows site builder as port of our portfolio (not used yet tho) however as we dont have personnel to write an api we dont have a means to 'integrate' it with our customers hosting accounts which breaks our 'automated' signup process. Whereas SiteZen would appear to enable us to offer an instantly availablility web site builder.

Our plan was to offer the Tucows 'Basic' site builder plan free with all our hosting packages and upsell to the more advanced packages but without an api to plug it all together SiteZen seems to be a beter choice, for us anyway, for offering a 'free' web site builder with DA and then upsell to Full zen.

Will you be writing a API for the the Tucows Site Builder?


Neil :D

[dec]

Hello.. Nice job!

Question:

Is it easy to translate this to another language, or even better.. Do you have this available in other languages? :)

Thanks

Dec

[BigWil]

Hey. You guys keep talking about this tucows product. Mine sharing a URL. Does it support more than just IE and what else should I know about?

Thanks in advance,

Big Wil

[jlasman]

Sure...

Look here (http://resellers.tucows.com/wholesale_services/webpublishing/websitebuilder/index_html).

Jeff

[magixman]

Originally posted by dec
Hello.. Nice job!

Question:

Is it easy to translate this to another language, or even better.. Do you have this available in other languages? :)

Thanks

Dec

Sorry for the delay in responding. The ability to translate siteZen is something we are asked about often. All I can say is that this will be forthcoming but that we do not yet have an ETA.

[magixman]

I wanted to update those interested in siteZen regarding our progress. We have released version 1.51 of the product which offers these features:

- A plug-in for Direct Admin to invoke the site builder and the admin screens.
- A much simpler installation process that is Direct Admin aware.
- Software updates through the user interface
- Fully automated provisioning of siteZen based on hosting plans in Direct Admin.
- Full support for the reseller structure in Direct Admin
- Improved branding in that our Logo can now be removed.

The price is still $150 per server for our baseline Instant Zen product and $10 per user to upgrade those who outgrow Instant Zen and need the Pro version. We now provide a feature that shows your customers how the pro upgrade will work with their current site.

http://www.sitemagix.com

Sam Elsamman
CEO siteMagix Inc.

[rldev]

Sound good. What about shopping cart, Event Calendar, Forms, Newsletter, Database, etc like soholaunch?

While I like your product better, I can not use it without these basic features.

[magixman]

Originally posted by rldev
Sound good. What about shopping cart, Event Calendar, Forms, Newsletter, Database, etc like soholaunch?

While I like your product better, I can not use it without these basic features.

We have a shopping cart via Pay Pal which is suitable for selling a small number of items quickly and easily. Our approach to event calandars, blogs, and forms is to have 'pre-fab' pages with layouts suitable to that purpose. Forms require a form-mailer program which some of our Direct Admin customers have installed. More robust eCommerce is in the works and should be out by the summer.

[BigWil]

What I want to see is:

1. Better implementation with other browsers besides IE. Firefox is growing like wildfire and you should keep this in mind on your next release.

2. Ability to add additional templates. With the new release of a well known e-commerce system that we are partnered with we will be releasing templates for the e-commerce system and would like to have matching templates for the static side.

Great job on the PayPal interface. We can use that to our benefit for those low budget customers that can't or don't want to pay for our more robust SSL packages.

You've almost sold me on your product.

Big Wil

[rldev]

Yes I agree the product is promising. When I see a robust ecom solution and some other stuff, I will buy.

[magixman]

Originally posted by BigWil
What I want to see is:

1. Better implementation with other browsers besides IE. Firefox is growing like wildfire and you should keep this in mind on your next release.

2. Ability to add additional templates. With the new release of a well known e-commerce system that we are partnered with we will be releasing templates for the e-commerce system and would like to have matching templates for the static side.

Great job on the PayPal interface. We can use that to our benefit for those low budget customers that can't or don't want to pay for our more robust SSL packages.

You've almost sold me on your product.

Big Wil

The Firefox issue has been covered in detail on this thread. Once published, siteZen sites can be viewed on all modern browsers. There would be no advantages for Windows users to edit their siteZen sites with Firefox as opposed to IE. So really the issue is non-windows platforms rather than Firefox.

Being able to add / change templates will be coming very soon. It is the most requested feature. We just want to make sure we do it right.

[BigWil]

We have several of our DA users and users in general that WILL NOT open their IE even on their windows systems. Several of them don't even know they can or care to know. IE is often just not a very liked product and FireFox is becoming the standard replacement for IE. Direct Admin functions fine in FireFox and everyone is happy so far.

When we start adding an IE requirement to certain admin functions such as the site building module people are going to become unhappy and send me hate mail. :-) Not an option.

You can pass around the buck and dodge the issue if you want to. But I need 7 server licenses now and 8 more by the end of spring. So you might want to look deeper into the problem and make it a little more portable. A little browser detection here and a splash of code there and walah! ;-)

Looking forward to that template ability too.

Big Wil

[magixman]

Originally posted by BigWil
We have several of our DA users and users in general that WILL NOT open their IE even on their windows systems. Several of them don't even know they can or care to know. IE is often just not a very liked product and FireFox is becoming the standard replacement for IE. Direct Admin functions fine in FireFox and everyone is happy so far.

When we start adding an IE requirement to certain admin functions such as the site building module people are going to become unhappy and send me hate mail. :-) Not an option.

You can pass around the buck and dodge the issue if you want to. But I need 7 server licenses now and 8 more by the end of spring. So you might want to look deeper into the problem and make it a little more portable. A little browser detection here and a splash of code there and walah! ;-)

Looking forward to that template ability too.

Big Wil

[magixman]

Originally posted by BigWil
We have several of our DA users and users in general that WILL NOT open their IE even on their windows systems. Several of them don't even know they can or care to know. IE is often just not a very liked product and FireFox is becoming the standard replacement for IE. Direct Admin functions fine in FireFox and everyone is happy so far.

When we start adding an IE requirement to certain admin functions such as the site building module people are going to become unhappy and send me hate mail. :-) Not an option.

You can pass around the buck and dodge the issue if you want to. But I need 7 server licenses now and 8 more by the end of spring. So you might want to look deeper into the problem and make it a little more portable. A little browser detection here and a splash of code there and walah! ;-)

Looking forward to that template ability too.

Big Wil

If it was possible to do we would have done it a long time ago. Until we can support a fully W3C compliant editor that will serve all platforms, Firefox will not be in the cards. I understand your concerns and I can only be honest in saying that you should not look for Firefox support in the near future.

[BigWil]

Bummer. We were almost sold too.

Best of luck with your endevours,

Big Wil

[jlasman]

Originally posted by magixman
If it was possible to do we would have done it a long time ago. Until we can support a fully W3C compliant editor that will serve all platforms, Firefox will not be in the cards. I understand your concerns and I can only be honest in saying that you should not look for Firefox support in the near future.
I won't disagree with you because you know your product better than I do.

But I will point out that mambo works fine with firefox.

So it can be done.

Jeff

[CrazyLane]

I've used SPAW Editor in several applications and they now support gecko. It seems like the figured it out.

http://www.solmetra.com/en/disp.php/en_products/en_spaw/en_spaw_intro

[alex2k]

Too bad license is user bases.
$10/user still too expensive for me :(

[magixman]

Originally posted by alex2k
Too bad license is user bases.
$10/user still too expensive for me :(

The price is $150/server for unlimited use of Instant Zen. Instant Zen is the baseline version that is comparable to most other site builders. The Pro upgrade at $10/users is really only for advanced users. We see upgrade rates in the single digits at present. The point is simply that you have that option for those who outgrow the baseline version.

[magixman]

Originally posted by CrazyLane
I've used SPAW Editor in several applications and they now support gecko. It seems like the figured it out.

http://www.solmetra.com/en/disp.php/en_products/en_spaw/en_spaw_intro We are working on a white paper that provides further details on browser technology that may help customers better understand the browser issue.

Here is an excerpt …..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Browsers were originally meant to view HTML and not to edit it. In version 5.0 of Internet Explorer, Microsoft introduced an API that allowed HTML to be edited. The API, known as ‘design mode’ allows an entire document to be put in an editable mode where text can be changed. A Javascript interface, known as ExecCommand, provides for basic formatting such as bold, indent, font changes and most of what one needs to implement a basic editor. These features made it possible for Microsoft to support its Hotmail product.

In version 6.0 of Internet Explorer Microsoft extended editing in a way that did not require the entire document to be editable. A contenteditable property was added to most HTML elements making it possible to selectively edit text in multiple places on a web page. These features are incorporated into siteZen. siteZen allows text to be edited anywhere on the page without exposing the complex table structure of a web page to the user. siteZen uses very little of the built in “ExecCommand” formatting in Internet Explorer because it does not provide for CSS based font sizing and had other serious limitations. Most of the siteZen editor is written in Javascript. Still siteZen absolutely relies on the basic editing that comes with the contenteditable property.

The Mozilla team realized that not being able to edit HTML was putting the browser at a competitive disadvantage with Internet Explorer. Therefore they added the ‘design mode’ API starting in version 1.3b of Mozilla. Essentially they copied the Microsoft API but unfortunately only the IE 5.0 version of the interface. This means that it is only possible to do HTML formatting on entire documents which means using iFrames in practical implementations . While this is fine for an email editor it is not sufficient for a site builder such as siteZen that allows the user to edit “in place” on multiple parts of a document while maintaining text flow over the whole page. For this reason siteZen continues to be incompatible with Mozilla based browsers (Netscape, Gecko, Firefox).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the bottom line is that if we wanted to change the interface of siteZen so that you had to pop up to edit each block in siteZen we could support Mozilla based browsers. Unfortunately this would make our product less convenient for the majority of users. It also would not help us much on macs since mac users consider Safari to be the standard browser and most would not like the idea of downloading and installing Firefox.

Therefore we decided that deprecating functionality to allow site editing with a browser that has a 5-6% market share that might grow to 10% by the end of 2005 just does not make sense at this time. Since most Firefox users have IE this is more of a public relations issue. The majority of our customers feel comfortable managing this issue and agree with our design trade offs.

As I have said before coming up with a fully W3C compliant solution is our goal but is not something to be expected in the immediate future.

I realize this may not meet everyone's needs but I wanted to make clear that this was not an arbitrary descision on our part or due to a lack of understanding of the issues. I hope this helps.

[xcobaltdude]

funny thing, this "Sitebuilder" works very well with Mozilla 1.7.1 running on XP:

http://www.sw-soft.com/en/products/sitebuilder/demo/

Sure, I'm biased towards Mozilla & Firefox. I'll admit it.....

[rldev]

Until there is drag and drop ecommerce like soholaunch, it doesnt matter to me.

[magixman]

I wanted to update everyone on the status of our direction with regard to support for Firefox. As I have stated before we will not attempt to use the IE extensions that Mozilla has built into their product in order to have our software run with Firefox.

Instead we have been busy working on technology that allows WYSIWYG editing of text in a way that is 100% standards-compliant. We made this available for demonstration recently at HostingCon. We will incorporate this into siteZen over the next few months.

The advantage of this approach is that we will be able to support a wider variety of browsers than Firefox alone. I will keep everyone posted as this progresses.

[rldev]

This is good news for your product.

[motobrandt]

Maybe this was/is covered in the site. But I thought that I'd ask it here since Firefox support IS a big issue.

If I purchase a license now and use the current system as is, will the proposed update that is 100% Firefox compliant be a free upgrade?

Looks like a cool product and I've defintely got intereseted customers. But Firefox support must atleast be coming. Even for Macs, which I support in an office everyday alongside Windoze, Safari is being left in the dust.

Cheers;)

[netearth]

HI all,

Read the whole thread, phew~!

Right, so to make sure I get this correct, if I buy the 250 dollar license, I will never have to pau a penny again, neither me or my users?

Now on the basis that is true, the only costs would be when I add more servers!?

Apart from that, cant wait to get it installed :)

Chris

ps. no doubt once installed I will start moaning about something :)

[magixman]

netearth,

Feel free to moan. We listen :-)

motobrandt,

Yes upgrades are free and when the new editor is released that works natviely compliant browsers that will be a free upgrade.

I should point out that while we are working on that we now provide a link to the the Mozilla 'IE View' install. Once installed, Windows users can run siteZen from Firefox and it simply starts siteZen in an IE window rather than a Firefox widow. This is makes it easier for those Windows users who prefer Firefox. I agree it does not help those on a mac or on Linux.

An interesting stat. While Firefox has less that a 10% market share overall it accounts for almost 50% of the visitors to sitemagix.com.

[magixman]

I have a question. siteZen has a contact form that is disabled if you don't have a form mailer program. It requires a form mailer that is "Matt Wright compatible" and that the form mailer be installed somewhere that is universally accessable (e.g. from all end-user domains). After that there is a config file setting in /etc/zen/conf to tell siteZen the URL of the form mailer and support for the feedback form is then enabled.

Do any of you use and/or recommend a form mailer that works well with Direct Admin?

Thanks

[jlasman]

You can find a free (as in beer, as in speech) version of FormMail here (http://www.nobaloney.net/downloads/formmail/).

(I'm not sure whether or not SiteZen would consider it "Matt Wright Compatible" but we do; it's based on Matt's FormMail.pl, but has been rewritten to be secure against abuse by spammers.

Be sure to read both README files; it's called the same way as Matt's program, but it requires some internal settings (changes to the .pl code) that are slightly different than the ones Matt's original requires.

Jeff

[netearth]

Originally posted by magixman
netearth,

Feel free to moan. We listen :-)



Thats good then :)

I have installed the demo version on my system, however the machine name is different than the site Zen is ment for.

The problem I am having is that (and this could be internal to me) when I go to www.netearth.net/zen I go to some other server completly diffferent. Also do you have /zeni as well cause that has appeared a couple of times?

Many thanks,
Chris

[magixman]

The problem I am having is that (and this could be internal to me) when I go to www.netearth.net/zen I go to some other server completly diffferent. Also do you have /zeni as well cause that has appeared a couple of times?

Many thanks,
Chris

That is normal. Because of suexec we need to keep our software executable from any domain so we redirect the login screen to a URL based on your server. This way we are sure to match the ownership of the executable files with the domain. When you launch siteZen from the DA plug-in, this becomes more transparent as no address bar is generated.

[magixman]

Originally posted by jlasman
You can find a free (as in beer, as in speech) version of FormMail here (http://www.nobaloney.net/downloads/formmail/).

(I'm not sure whether or not SiteZen would consider it "Matt Wright Compatible" but we do; it's based on Matt's FormMail.pl, but has been rewritten to be secure against abuse by spammers.

Be sure to read both README files; it's called the same way as Matt's program, but it requires some internal settings (changes to the .pl code) that are slightly different than the ones Matt's original requires.

Jeff

Jeff,

Thanks for the tip on the form mail script. We were able to get this script to work with siteZen by doing the following:

1) Copy the FormMail.pl file to /var/www/cgi-bin/

2) Chmod it to 755

3) Uncomment the cgi-sbin reference in httpd.conf and restart httpd

4) Set form_mail_script in /etc/zen/conf to point to http://myhostname/cgi-sbin/FormMail.pl. This gets around the suexec issues for common use of a script. (restart zendaemon).

As long as recipient_domains is set to point to the domain in the test case it works fine. Obviously this is not a practical way to share a script. cPanel provides a formmail script that anyone can use from a common url suffix and it only allows emails to be sent to a domain on the server. They wrote their own script to do this. Has anyone found a way to share a 'standard' form-mail script server-wide or does each user have to have their own script in the cgi-bin directory, configured for their own domain?

I must be missing something obvious here.

Thanks for your help.

[jlasman]

Sharing a formmail script server wide opens up a huge spamhole in that allows anyone to use it to create a dictionary spam attack (a possible DOS attack) against the server.

That's why won't do it, that's why we won't allow such a script to run on our servers.

It's our opinion that anyone who needs to use a form-to-mail script should be able to learn how to change a few lines in it so it'll work securely.

I can understand why you want that script to be automatic, but once you suffer a dictionary attack against all possible logins on all the domains on your server, you'll see why we don't.

We get two or three attempts per month per server; which our version of FormMail.pl reports to us.

Jeff

[magixman]

Originally posted by jlasman
Sharing a formmail script server wide opens up a huge spamhole in that allows anyone to use it to create a dictionary spam attack (a possible DOS attack) against the server.

That's why won't do it, that's why we won't allow such a script to run on our servers.

It's our opinion that anyone who needs to use a form-to-mail script should be able to learn how to change a few lines in it so it'll work securely.

I can understand why you want that script to be automatic, but once you suffer a dictionary attack against all possible logins on all the domains on your server, you'll see why we don't.

We get two or three attempts per month per server; which our version of FormMail.pl reports to us.

Jeff

Well that confirms in my mind that the standard formmail scripts are really not suitable for server wide usage. Our cPanel boxes running the standard cPanel shared formmail script also gets attacks from time to time though none have been successful.

I guess the only 'safe' alternative would be to provide our own code that 'glued' down the recipient rather than dealing with a recipient field in a form and then trying to check it. We are looking for a solution that does not require configuration knowledge on the part of the user which could potentially open up more holes if they did not configure their 'personal' formmail script correctly.

[jlasman]

The right solution would be to create an installer that the user could run, which would create a custom php script in his public_html directory.

Go ahead and write it :) .

Jeff

[icepick]

Hi,

Are you still offering the server license at a reduced price? Do you have a reseller option such as DA; I telehouse servers and sell servers to my clients with DA.

Thanks
Barry

[magixman]

We have an unlimited ‘everything’ license for a one-time fee of $250. Existing customers may upgrade to this license and get full credit for their curent license. In addition we have lowered the entry price for the ‘pay-by-user’ licenses so that you can buy a 100 user Instant Zen license for $100. You can upgrade the license to an unlimited license when you grow out of it. For those who prefer to pay by the month, we have a monthly unlimited ‘everything’ license for $25/month.

Unlimited licenses can be in the name of the reseller for resellers of dedicated servers. There are arrangements that can be made for quantity purchases. Please contact zensales@sitemagix.com for more information on this.

[icepick]

so its $100 once off and then i can upgrade for $250 to zenpro unlimited everything?

[magixman]

Originally posted by icepick
so its $100 once off and then i can upgrade for $250 to zenpro unlimited everything?

That is correct. The $100 license is a pay per-user license which you can upgrade to the $250 unlimited license at any time by paying the difference ($150).

[icepick]

now to wait for a bsd version, any idea how long before that happens? Think i'll stick to the forum rather than email so others can see that bsd may be supported :)

thnx

[magixman]

Originally posted by icepick
now to wait for a bsd version, any idea how long before that happens? Think i'll stick to the forum rather than email so others can see that bsd may be supported :)
thnx
We don't have a date for BSD. I will post here when when we do. It is at least a quarter away.

[icepick]

So very sad, such a wonderful application, but no support.
Whats the chances of getting an evaluation license and trying to install it to see if it works, has anyone even tested it with bsd yet? BSD is very simular to linux so I dont see why there would be an issue.

[magixman]

Originally posted by jlasman
The right solution would be to create an installer that the user could run, which would create a custom php script in his public_html directory.

Go ahead and write it :) .

Jeff

Jeff,

As per your suggestion we have done just that in the current version. We create a small php script with a hard-coded recipient when you publish a site with a contact form.

Form support will now be automatic for new DA installations. For existing installations you need to modify /etc/zen/conf and change

form_mail_script 0

to ...

form_mail_script internal

Then you restart zendaemon.

Once this is done any newly built sites will get a 'Contact Us' page with a sample form mailer. Existing sites can add a 'Form Mailer' box to their contact us page.

It seems that DA is starting to account for larger and larger portion of our sales so we wanted to make sure DA users were not missing out on this important feature.

One other thing worth mentioning as that we now handle .swf .avi and .mov files as images.

[Miky]

Hi,

This is mainly aimed at siteMagix Inc...

A while back I posted a message in this thread giving some feedback and comparing SiteZen and SiteBuilder2. The message ended up deleted because it was pointing to an other post considered 'commercial'. We still got to exchange a few interresting messages about sitezen vs sitebuilder and the planed upgrades for sitezen.

This is now a few months later, I just had to setup a new server, upgraded SiteZen, installed a Slave version as well. In the process I browsed the sitezen site and even got to build a temp site with sitezen pro .

This is my feedback now and own opinion of course...
I think you guys went in the right direction. SiteZen was great but a few months later it is even greater :) . The extra templates, the changes in the licencing, the extra features, the easy installation under DA ect.. If I was to compare again i'd say "There are a couple of good alternative site builders out there, but as a DA user, I cannot find a good reason to pick or suggest an other site builder than SiteZen".

Just stay on the same track and make it even better.

Cheers

Miky

[nieuwhier]

Is there any news about other languages (such as world language no 1 DUTCH );)

Other questions;
1) Can someone make a site on server A and pubish it to server B

2) Can I enable/disable this feature per user in DA or with an API ?

[magixman]

Originally posted by nieuwhier
Is there any news about other languages (such as world language no 1 DUTCH );)

Other questions;
1) Can someone make a site on server A and pubish it to server B

2) Can I enable/disable this feature per user in DA or with an API ?

Dutch is a great language and certainly is number 1 if you are in Holland. I have fond memories of spending two weeks in a little town called Nieuwegein (near Utrecht) and trying to learn to pronounce the name properly. Even after two weeks I never quite got it right :-)

In any event we had been working on translations and made our way partially through a translation. We are now, however, embarking on a revised, wizard-based help system and so this will delay the translation efforts. The 2nd half of 2006 is more likely date for making things available to those who wish to do translations.

Remote publish has made its way on the list of things we are working on as part of a siteZen edition, specifically for customers that have complex environments where running the software on each server is impractical. At present we have no plans to integrate this into the base product.

[nieuwhier]

thx for you answers.

Remote publish is very handy for us so that we can install the software on just on e server wich will reduce maintanance costs.

We have been looking for all kind of sitebuilders now but none of them fits our needs yet.
Basicly:
1. Dutch and english translation
2. Install on one server and publish through ftp(wich we could controle through a api)
3. A simple sitebuilder with not to much functions. Goal is to create simple websites for users with no html knowledge at all. To much functionality will mean more support tickets :(

[blacknight]

I got a demo a couple of weeks ago and recently bought a license :)

Now the question I have is very simple.. How can I integrate it fully with directadmin? ie. is there a plugin so that it appears in the skin?

If it is documented I must have missed it ...

TIA

Michele

[magixman]

Originally posted by blacknight
Now the question I have is very simple.. How can I integrate it fully with directadmin? ie. is there a plugin so that it appears in the skin?

If it is documented I must have missed it ...

TIA

Michele

Yes there is a plugin.

http://www.sitemagix.com/adminsupport/page_10371.html

[blacknight]

Yeah - I eventually found it :)

Is that page mentioned in the welcome email or PDF?

[magixman]

Originally posted by blacknight
Yeah - I eventually found it :)

Is that page mentioned in the welcome email or PDF?

Yes this is the same site that you went to for installation. We could do better at making it more step by step then having to follow the links. Point noted.

[blacknight]

I think you could easily resolve this. In the welcome email simply put something like:

"If you are using control panel x please see this page for specific information"

It would have saved me a lot of rummaging around :)

[Blindbasher]

Got msn?

[nieuwhier]

Hi magixman. Could you please give us an update of your product ?

[magixman]

We have recently updated the Direct Admin plug-in so that it no longer requires a login. You can now just go directly into siteZen from the Direct Admin control panel.

Our next major release (we hope to have done by the end of the month) will have support for Firefox and Safari (mac). This has taken all of our focus and so some of the other things that have been discussed in this thread such as multi-language support, FreeBSD support and remote publish have been delayed until we get this out.

You can stay up-to-date by having a look at our support forum.

http://support.sitemagix.com

[hostpc.com]

I know I'm ressurrecting an old thread, but I felt compelled to offer my 2cents to the DA community on this product.

After having been a staunch supporter of this product for a couple of years, we ran into some issues recently which necessitated moving the licensed server to another machine - which went very easily.

The problems started when we tried to sign up new clients to the Zen product. Despite having several hundred dollars tied up into this project in licensing fees, and a nightly report that showed a majority of that amount "available" - we still encounter "at limit" errors trying to setup new customers.

I contacted their support department ... their last comment (after a 3-4 email back/forth session) was

There is an explanation for the discrepancy. We just need to find out exactly what the situation is.

I replied with full screenshots, and even gave them the admin password for the control panel so they could investigate and get the product working. (It's already at the latest versions)

That was the last I heard from them. 02/26/2008 12:08 AM ET

Another week has passed, there's been no followup from them, and no further emails are being responded to. From what I can tell, they've not logged in to the builder admin site, nor can we register any new users.

We've wasted several hundred dollars on this product, our customers are demanding satisfaction. We'll probably never recover any of the $ that was invested in it. In an original email from the owner, he says we're "grandfathered" into old pricing - maybe that's why we're not getting any further support :(
We have
> > > raised our prices and will continue to do so. We always
> have grandfathered
> > > old prices for our existing customers. We want to move away
> from life-time
> > > licenses and more to a recurring revenue model.

Anyone have any other site builder solution ideas - other than TuClowns ?

[magixman]

Joe,

I am guessing that you did not get this response that was sent on Feb 28 to ticket #CNR-89998-327. It is always a good idea to check the ticket system as sometimes threaded email does go astray.....
=======================================================

So many of those are servers that you once had connected as slaves but
that are now de-commisioned?

When you disconnect a slave you need to remove all of the users first
(so siteZen sees that they are gone) and then disconnect the slave. It
will remain on the server screen but this ensures that the users are
removed and you wont' continue to be charged for them. If you just
pull a slave off-line you can end up being charged for users that
don't exists or have been moved to another server.

What you can do is to delete the end_users table contents in the
sitezen_master database. It will get rebuilt from the active users on
the active slaves. So you would do this...

mysql
> use sitezen_master;
> delete from enduser_table;

You can also get rid of decomissioned servers like this

> select machine_id from hostmachine_table;
> delete from hostmachine_table where machine_id='xxxx' (xxx is decomissioned host)

Don't delete the entire hostmachine_table as this one is not
automatically rebuilt.

After you do that wait for 10 minutes and let's take another look at
the license screen.

================================================

[boonchuan]

I tried the plugin but it brings me back to a screen

Launching the siteZen Admin module in a new Window

If new window does not appear click here

When I click the link which is http://IP:2222/CMD_PLUGINS_ADMIN/site_zen it brings me back to the same message.

Can someone help?